


Normalcy is Overrated

by panpipe



Category: SS501
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-26
Updated: 2009-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panpipe/pseuds/panpipe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jungmin is a superhero and Hyungjoon is the fanboy who stalks him. A love story, kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normalcy is Overrated

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://panpipe.livejournal.com/104845.html#cutid1) as part of [gyonggo_ss](http://community.livejournal.com/gyonggo_ss/).

Jungmin is a superhero. He doesn't have a cape, but he _does_ have a penchant for spandex and gogo boots, so he thinks it works out well enough. And he doesn't have an idiotic name like Mirror Man either -- he's got class.

Okay, so maybe he doesn't have a name at all. And maybe it's not so much a matter of class as it is the fact that there haven't been any journalists clamoring to come up with a creative name for him. _But they will_. One day. When he's famous enough. For now, he'll settle for hearing murmurs on the street that there's something very weird happening in the city, or that a beautiful young man saved someone's life, _I saw it, I swear_. The fact that people are even talking about it at all means his efforts aren't going unnoticed.

He supposes it's at this point that he should assure you, dear reader, that he doesn't do it for the fame--he does it for the Saving People's Lives thing.

That's not true at all. He does it for the fame.

Jungmin has always been shameless, and he sees no reason to change his ways just because he's trying to become a famous superhero. So he likes people liking him! Does that make him a bad person? No. He's using his powers for good and not evil, and he thinks that ought to be enough, even if his motives are impure. After all, he _could_ be trying to get famous by torturing innocents.

Jungmin begins each day the same way. He checks the radio before work, at lunch, during smoke breaks (he has realized that pretending to be a smoker has its uses), and of course, after the work day has ended. He thinks that he would probably have a superhero name coined by now if it weren't for the fact he had to pay to look that fabulous while fighting evil.

So Jungmin goes about his days as usual and hopes that one day, he'll catch his big break.

 

It happens differently than he expected. He's watched Superman thousands of times, tried to emulate his style, his tactics, everything--so he always thought he'd make it if he just made a point of saving different journalists (preferably the hot ones). Unfortunately, none of them have ever wanted to risk their career reporting on some unknown superhero.

 

What Jungmin really should have been thinking about is the fact that the world today is nothing like Superman's. Journalists don't always control the media.

The _internet_ controls the media.

It starts with a simple twitter account, innocently tweeting away, complete with a twitpic photo of Jungmin flying and waving goodbye to the poor schmuck he'd saved, and suddenly, after repeated retweeting, The Horse is famous.

(The Horse? Seriously? Perhaps Jungmin really _should_ have slapped a "J" on his username. Maybe then he'd have something less ridiculous than _The fucking Horse_.)

 

He's tried to use his super secret gadgets to find out who started the name, but it doesn't exactly work, considering his only super secret gadgets 1) aren't that secret and 2) aren't that super. He really only has one gadget, and it's an iPhone.

He registers for a twitter account and follows the guy who started The Horse nickname. He figures that maybe the guy will give some clue as to his whereabouts if he watches him long enough. After all, the account says he lives in Seoul. He has to be around _somewhere_.

However, despite the fact that Jungmin is the one "following" _him_ , it seems more like BabySinger124 is following _him_. Somehow, BabySinger124 has managed to tweet about eight out of ten of his latest escapades, proving to be the most accurate news source about Seoul's new favorite superhero.

 

Jungmin starts to get fan mail. He's not sure _how_ he's getting fan mail, because he's pretty sure no one knows about his real identity or his real address, but the fact stands. He is receiving fan mail, forwarded from a post box he never opened. It starts off with a few people who thank him for saving his life before it turns into honest to goodness fan mail, extolling his virtues or his manly thighs. There are some fan letters where he can really tell which asset they're actually referring to.

 

Some of letters are just plain creepy, showing an unhealthy dedication to how great his ass looks in that spandex.

When he starts to receive mail from some of his enemies, threatening to kill him or detailing the steps of their latest plan to overthrow him, he begins to wonder if he should be more worried.

 

It takes him about three days to figure out the right Google search word combination to determine how people found out about the mysterious post box.

It is, of course, the work of BabySinger124. Only, it appears, he's no longer going by BabySinger124. His name is Hyungjoon, and he has helpfully included his address on the "Contact Me" part of his fansite dedicated to The Horse. Jungmin debates whether he should try to do some recon first, or if he should just show up as The Horse demanding that the boy stop being so fucking creepy.

He decides doing a bit of recon is more prudent. The kid would probably manage to turn his showing up as The Horse on his doorstep into some kind of YouTube media event.

 

There's a park across the street from Hyungjoon's apartment complex. It takes Jungmin about two days to figure out which one is Hyungjoon, and another three weeks to get a full understanding of Hyungjoon's schedule. Which of course he needs if he is going to properly accost Hyungjoon in such a way that the kid can't tweet a picture of it or film it for YouTube. Jungmin never thought he'd say it, but he's starting to get sick of the publicity. It makes him nervous that someone's going to find out his secret identity, and then he's either the freak in the tights or the guy everyone in the world wants to kill or the one all the women in the world wants to sleep with-- He shudders. He's flattered, of course, but there's still something weird about sixty-year-old women mailing him their used thongs. Jungmin's pretty sure it'd creep him out even if he _was_ straight.

As it turns out, Jungmin didn't need to bother being stealthy. After a month of stalking his apartment, Hyungjoon walks directly toward him. "Look, Horse guy, do you want to talk to me or something? The women in the complex are starting to fear for their safety."

"I-- Wait-- How did you--" Jungmin stutters, completely unnerved.

Hyungjoon shrugs and says, "You saved me once, before you started wearing the gogo boots," as if this is a perfectly reasonable explanation.

 

It turns out this _is_ a perfectly reasonable explanation--or at least, Jungmin thinks, it'd better be, because otherwise he can't explain the fact that he suddenly spends his free time watching game show reruns at Hyungjoon's house. Hyungjoon has even started preparing an extra place at the dinner table each night. If Jungmin happens to be out saving someone during dinner time, Hyungjoon leaves the key under the mat so Jungmin can still get his dinner after Hyungjoon goes to sleep.

Jungmin thinks he should probably be worried about Hyungjoon's easy accommodation of Jungmin's whims. First, any normal person should be freaked out by a random guy moving into someone's life. Second, _Jungmin_ should be freaked out because _Hyungjoon is obviously not normal_. He has never had another explanation for why Hyungjoon stalked his superhero exploits for four months, or how he figured out Jungmin's home address, or why Hyungjoon was that obsessed with him. Third, after months of stalking Jungmin, _Hyungjoon has him exactly where he wants him_.

He supposes he doesn't feel threatened because he is, after all, a hero with superhuman strength, but a dark part of Jungmin's mind thinks it has more to do with the fact that being with Hyungjoon is so _easy_ , so freeing, so... comforting. For the first time in his entire life, Jungmin feels normal.

(It's not that Jungmin is an alien or anything, it's just that as a child it was hard to get close to other children because he knew that liking other boys was Not The Thing To Do, and then when he hit puberty he was pretty sure throwing star athletes fifteen feet across the field near the school Wasn't Right Either.)

 

Hyungjoon invites Jungmin out with his friends without asking any uncomfortable questions like, "Why don't you ever invite me out with your friends?" (Because I don't have any.) or "Why don't we ever hang out at your place?" (It's not really a home.) or even "What's your favorite hang-out place in Seoul?" (I don't have one, never needed one before you came along.) Jungmin knows, in the back of his mind, that the reason Hyungjoon doesn't ask those questions is because he already knows the answer, because he's probably been watching Jungmin long enough to know that there's not much left in his life outside of putting on his gogo boots and saving the world.

The worst part about the unanswered questions is what it means for Jungmin's life before he met Hyungjoon. How did an obsessive fan of his somehow turn out more normal than he did? What has Jungmin been doing all this time? If it hadn't been for Hyungjoon, would anyone have remembered him at all if one of his enemies had actually offed him?

He only really thinks about these things when he's alone at his apartment, looking at the soulless decorations he's acquired. His apartment is beautiful, filled with delicate photo frames and intricate mirrors decorating the walls, but the only contents of those photos are pictures he's found on the internet and the only one who ever appears in the mirror is himself.

Jungmin thinks about Hyungjoon's apartment, of the photos he's taken with his friends lining the walls ("Yeah, that's Hyunjoong and Youngsaeng -- I know, I know, trust me, I've already heard everything you could want to say about it --") and the fact that the only time Jungmin looks into a mirror at Hyungjoon's apartment, Hyungjoon is normally behind him, making a silly face and goofing off.

It's not too long before Hyungjoon starts replacing the photos in the frames with new ones, and Jungmin is surprised to realize that most of the photos contain familiar scenes. It's that time they met up with Hyungjoon's friends at the bar, or the day everyone wanted to go ice skating after getting spectacularly intoxicated, or hey, there's even that one from when he and Hyungjoon spent the day at the park--

Jungmin lingers over the last picture a bit and smiles. Hyungjoon looks up from chopping vegetables for dinner and laughs. "What, do you want a copy of it? That'll last longer, you know."

 

Weeks pass, winter arrives, and suddenly Jungmin finds himself curled up with Hyungjoon, sitting in front of his fireplace, regaling Hyungjoon with the exciting stories of his exploits for the day. Every once in a while, Hyungjoon will interrupt with a funny one-liner or a "Wait, did ___ happen?" or even a "Oooh it would have been so funny if they'd said ____ instead." It's become yet another part of their routine, another part of another normal day, and Jungmin isn't sure where to go from here. He doesn't care that Hyungjoon is probably some crazy stalker because, as of yet, Hyungjoon hasn't tried to kidnap him or sell him on eBay or keep him locked in a closet, so he feels that Hyungjoon is probably sane _enough_. Jungmin's not sure he's willing to risk their easy friendship just to muck things up by accusing Hyungjoon of being insane and needing psychiatric help.

When he thinks Hyungjoon has fallen asleep beside him, he smiles, pecks him on the cheek, and curls up closer to Hyungjoon's warm body. He's not yet ready to admit that he's fallen for his crazy stalker, but he figures a peck on the cheek while the other's asleep shouldn't give away his secret.

It wouldn't have, either, if Hyungjoon had actually been asleep. Jungmin can almost hear the grin in Hyungjoon's voice as he says, "It's about time, hyung. I've loved you forever."

Jungmin thinks about all the times his mother asked him to find a nice Korean girl to settle down with, and he snuggles closer.


End file.
